


The fair acceptance

by dotfic



Series: The Ketchup 'verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 07:33:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5819701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Dean.” And when Cas said his name like that, Dean knew they were in for it, that Cas needed to talk about something deadly <em>serious</em>, whether it was the right moment for it or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The fair acceptance

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: part of a planned series of fics set in what I’m calling the Ketchup ‘verse, an alternate timeline that diverges from canon around mid season 9 but also follows it somewhat. This one is set early in an alternate S11. Thank you to inplayruns for the beta.

Every time Dean walked into a hospital, it gnawed at him again how much he hated them. But he’d been to this one regularly enough now that the smell, the starkness of the clean white floors, the generic landscape art on the walls, the atmosphere of injury or illness everywhere, didn’t bug much him any more.

“You want coffee first?” Sam asked, and the way Sam spoke, slow and careful with his words, clued Dean in that maybe Sam was trying to give Dean a plausible reason to take his time.

It wasn’t needed. It was fine. Plus the coffee there was bad, just a few steps up from hot water with grounds mixed into it, bland as all hell. 

“Nah. Let’s just go upstairs, relieve Charlie.” 

Dean almost wished he still carried that flask of whiskey around with him everywhere, but while he was trying to get his head above the fog the Mark put in his brain, he’d started steering clear of it. Still trying. At least Sam and Cas seemed to think it was worth a shot, even if he wasn’t so sure.

The room they wanted was on the fourth floor. They both had the number memorized by now.

When Dean and Sam arrived, Charlie was curled up asleep in one of the two chairs, cheek pillowed on her palm against the back of it. She was certainly in an awkward position, but peaceful in a way Kevin wasn’t, even though he was the one stretched flat on his back in the bed with his limbs arranged comfortably and a blanket tucked neatly over him. 

There was a vase of wilted wildflowers on the side table. Dean recognized them as the same ones Cas brought last week. Any sensible person would’ve bought daisies or something from the grocery store down the street, but no, not Cas. Cas, he went and found a field near the hospital, and picked wild flowers—on private property. He was lucky he hadn’t been arrested.

Kevin looked far too young and small, like he was still that terrified high school kid, world ripped to shreds the moment he’d had his first vision. He should’ve been in college by now, not lying in a coma. The thought smashed into Dean.

A lot of things were like this now, since the Mark of Cain came off: too much all at once. The Mark had muffled a lot of things that cooked in his gut, stuff that had still been there but pushed aside for other emotions. It worked like an equalizer that cranked the anger and fear up way too high.

Sam took the dead flowers out of the vase and dropped them in the trash. His footsteps were soft, but the movement was enough to wake Charlie. She sat up muttering “I’ll have to use the Cone of Cold…” then blinked fully awake. When she spotted them, Charlie smiled.

“Hey, guys,” she said brightly, but with a lot less energy and enthusiasm than she did the times she visited the bunker to join in on a hunt, or borrow the Men of Letters library, or have a movie night. With Charlie, though, things usually turned into a combination of all three.

Charlie hugged Sam, then Dean, and it was another sharp moment of awareness, how she felt too thin in Dean’s arms, although it was likely only an increase in wiry muscle. Her grip was a lot stronger than his impulse to walk out of that room, find the nearest dive bar, and forget.

“How’s he doing?” Sam asked, going to Kevin’s bedside. He brushed his fingers over Kevin’s shoulder. 

Dean couldn’t say anything.

“No change,” Charlie said, her voice a little too steady and too small.

It smelled like dead flowers in that room, the scent kicked up from Sam throwing them out. Dean’s stomach lurched then calmed.

Because he desperately needed something to do, needed to _move_ , Dean went to stand by the window. Charlie had brought a few action figures, arranged on the sill in the sunlight, random yet familiar selections: Han Solo, Iron Man, a bobble-head Wonder Woman.

“I know.” Charlie said. When Dean turned, she was standing at Kevin’s side, looking down at him. “Maybe it’s kind of silly but I thought, it’s like they can watch over him since we can’t be here all the time.” She smoothed a wrinkle in the blanket, and Dean thought about Charlie’s mother.

“It’s not silly.” Sam answered her. “When he wakes up, he’ll like having them here, it’s—“ His voice cracked a little and he went quiet.

“If he wakes up,” Dean said, automatic. It was like a brick had gotten stuck in his chest. 

It was damn stuffy in that room. His heart was going too fast.

Dean made himself glance over at Kevin again, the tubes and wires running from his arms into IV’s and monitors.

There was a footstep behind him and Dean spun around, arms going up to near fight-stance without thought.

Cas didn’t flinch or blink, just stared at him. Dean lowered his arms. 

“I got here as soon as I could.” Castiel’s gaze lingered on Dean a few seconds more, then went to Kevin. The lines of his mouth and his eyes grew heavier and more tired. “I healed him once,” Cas said. “Knit his broken tissue back together, brought him back to life. I would do it now if I could.” He looked down at his hands, clenched and unclenched his fists. “My grace is too weak.”

“Cas,” Charlie said, and hurried over to hug him, and Cas hugged her back.

“It’s okay,” Sam said. “It’s okay, Cas. We know.”

Dean found it difficult to get a deep breath. The room was now sweltering. He watched Kevin’s chest go slowly up and down. He was breathing on his own, the doctors said. At least there was that. The bones Styne busted, the deep gash just below his ribs, those were healing, but the head injuries were a different kettle of _fuck you_. 

At least the Styne bastard was dead now, Kevin and Charlie had taken him down together.

Cold sweat tickled the back of Dean’s neck and he stepped quickly away from the bed. The room pitched. Fuck, he wasn’t going to fucking _swoon,_ this was ridiculous. He had to—

“Dean.” Cas’s fingers closed around his bicep. “I think maybe we should go outside. Get some food.”

“Yeah,” Sam said with a long glance at Dean. “I think that’d be a good idea. You all go ahead,” Sam said. “I’ll stay with Kevin.”

“I’ll stay too,” Charlie said. “Bring me a grilled cheese? And fries? And a milkshake?” She settled back into the chair, tucking her legs up under her.

“Burger,” Sam said. “No cheese, extra pickles.”

Cas nodded. “Grilled cheese, fries, milkshake, burger no cheese extra pickles,” he said, in the same tone he might reel off a list of things they needed for some arcane spell. The thing about Cas, he’d make sure he brought their food back exactly as they’d asked for it, even if he had to literally go through a tornado, an army of the undead, and a plague of locusts to do it. Dean was still working out whether this trait was a feature or a bug.

There was a careful tug on his sleeve and it was somehow non-demanding yet also insistent; for sure, Cas wasn’t leaving that hospital room unless Dean went with him. 

They walked quickly along the corridor and after what felt like a million years, reached the elevator. Dean started humming “Until It Sleeps” under his breath until they were outside.

The diner was a few blocks away—Dean had spotted it on the way there—so he didn’t bother heading for the Impala. Also, he admitted to himself, he needed to be moving his body, breathing non-recirculated air. Maybe he could go for a run, to clear his head. He could go back to the motel first and then—

“Dean…Dean!”

He realized Cas was saying his name and that he’d gotten way ahead of him.

“Just…Dean, please, just for a moment—“ Cas held pace with him for half a block, then moved ahead, spread his arms in a plea. “Just stop. For a moment.”

“Yeah. Okay.” He stood still, letting the sun warm his face. 

There wasn’t time for this—they had bigger problems, like a rogue Mark of Cain jumping from random person to random person. That guy back in Arkansas they’d been too late to save—a dad with two little kids. Some people fended it off longer than others, while others snapped early, becaming no longer themselves. Sometimes they got there in time to cast the spell that freed it again, which just set it loose to find another person to latch onto, and the chase was on.

All because of him. Because the Mark was off of him.

“It’s not your fault,” Cas said.

“What?” Dean blinked. Cas couldn’t actually read his mind, right? No, Cas had assured him enough times, even if he could hear prayers.

“Any of this,” Cas said, facing him on the sidewalk. The light fell through the leaves of the big oak above them in such a way that dappled his dark hair, his face, and his shoulders as if he were stained glass.

That was another thing since the Mark was off Dean: Cas. Cas in high definition. Stuff Dean had tried his best not to think too much about, or linger on, for years. But with the Mark gone, his normal level of emotions by contrast often felt like a torrent. He was having trouble turning the settings down. 

Yeah, all right, no doubt about it, sometimes Dean enjoyed just _looking_ at Cas more than he was going to admit out loud.

“Okay.” Dean let out a slow breath and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, eyes shut for a moment. “Okay, I know. I’ve heard it before.” He kept on walking, but slower now. 

They went another block before Dean froze in his tracks.

The reaper stood under a tree beside the diner, a rail-thin old man in a dark suit.

“You see that?” Dean said, and Cas was right there at his shoulder.

“I see it.”

It was the third reaper this week. 

Between Sam’s freaky nightmares, Dean’s reaper sightings, and Cas with his low-wattage grace insisting on learning every hunter tool ever devised, while they all played “Where’s the Mark of Cain Now,” Dean was sorrier and sorrier he hadn’t just gone and found a dive bar hole to fall into. 

When Dean looked again, the reaper had vanished. Typical.

The diner was a nice little place with a real flower in a water glass at each table, home-baked cookies for sale at the register, and a collection of old glass bottles on display. He and Cas settled into a booth at the window.

Both of them ordered cheeseburgers. Dean still wasn’t completely clear on whether Cas needed to eat—if his remaining grace was enough to keep him going—or if he simply enjoyed food now that his grace was low wattage.

Dean didn't even realize he was fidgeting with the spoon until Cas put his hand over Dean’s, stilling it. His palm was rough from practicing with weapons, and warm, and the touch both calmed Dean and sent a jolt of heat through him that had nothing to do with Cas’s grace.

Fuck. This had been easier to cope with when the Mark was still on him.

Slowly Cas pulled his hand away and Dean watched his long fingers draw back along the table and curl into a fist.

“Dean.” And when Cas said his name like that, Dean knew they were in for it, that Cas needed to talk about something deadly _serious_ , whether it was the right moment for it or not. “You…didn’t deserve it. What I did under Rowena’s attack-dog spell.”

“Well, the way I see it,” Dean said, making himself busy arranging the packets of sugar in their holder, “it brought us square. After what I did to you.”

“Which also wasn’t your fault,” Cas said. “You bore the Mark.”

“It was still me. My fault for taking it on in the first place.”

“What about what happened in the crypt?” Cas moved, keeping eye-contact with Dean. 

Short of actually making up an excuse to leave the table like _I gotta go pee,_ Dean was stuck.

Maybe he didn’t want to leave. All this had been eating away in him, maybe if they just—

“That wasn’t you,” Dean snapped. “Naomi brainwashed you. You overcame it. That wasn’t your—”

“Wasn’t my fault, I know,” Cas interrupted. “And the library wasn’t yours. You overcame it too, after all. So—“

The waitress arrived with their cheeseburgers.

“Finally!” Dean grabbed his plate right out of her hands.

“Wow, hungry much?” The waitress smiled and nodded at Castiel as she put his plate down. “Better make sure your boyfriend gets enough to eat.”

Dean squeezed the ketchup bottle so hard it drowned his french fries by accident. But Cas only nodded calmly. “I’ll look after him.”

The waitress left them, and Dean decided the best thing to do right then was to eat his cheeseburger and pretend nothing had happened.

Cas ate exactly one french fry before he spoke again. “Do you forgive me, for the crypt?”

“What?” Dean put down his cheeseburger. “Yes, of course, wait, there wasn’t anything to forgive, I just said, you were brainwashed—“

“Doesn’t matter. It was still my hands hurting you. I…remember all of it. Even if was against my will. It still hurt you.” There was an ache behind Cas’s voice.

Dean closed his eyes, trying to forget the image of Castiel’s bloodied face. Then he opened his eyes again, took a deep breath, and said, “Yeah. Point taken. But I forgive you, you forgive me. Like I said. The slate is clean.”

“No, it’s not.” Cas completely ignored the food in front of him, which wasn’t unusual, but for once Dean wished Cas would just tuck in and eat. “You still think you deserved what I did to you under Rowena’s spell,” Cas said, earnest and quiet. “You wouldn’t even let me heal you for something my hands did. You haven’t forgiven yourself.”

Running away from a conversation was something Cas used to do when his wings still functioned. In mid-argument, suddenly, _whoosh-blink_ and he’d be gone, leaving behind a cloud of wounded feelings that was practically visible.

Dean always hated it.

He stifled the urge to run.

“Okay. Maybe.” Dean took another bite of his burger.

“You’re a good man, Dean.” Something in his face gave Dean feel a weird jolt of hope, about everything, and made his stomach jump, not unpleasantly. Cas leaned forward. “I wish you could see yourself the way I do.”

Hazily, he remembered Cas saying _that’s not true_ when Dean had denied being a role model. This was worse. So, so much worse. He didn’t have the Mark of Cain now. He reached for his soda glass, taking deep gulps without bothering to use the straw, to keep from actually freakin’ crying like an idiot.

“Maybe there is no clean slate,” Cas said calmly, philosophically. “It’s not something like a sporting event where keeping score makes sense. Perhaps we carry what we’ve done and try to do better.”

“Maybe we’re all just damned, whatever we do,” Dean said wryly. “I’m sure damned. No ways around it.”

Cas frowned at that. “No…Dean, you’re not.“

The intensity and conviction in Cas’s voice was so strong, burning bright as grace.

“All right,” Dean said softly. “Okay, Cas. It’s ok. I get what you’re saying.”

They both went quiet. 

“What do we do now?” Cas ventured, finally.

“For the moment?” Dean looked right at Cas. “Cas, I’d like it if you sat here with me while we finish our cheeseburgers.”

“All right.” Cas’s mouth twitched into a small smile, and Dean thought, he’d never run.

**Author's Note:**

> *Title by Ben Johnson


End file.
